It is well known that drivers and passengers track various substances, for instance water, snow, slush (watery snow that sometimes carries salt), mud, etc., into vehicles on their footwear. Such drivers and passengers may herein be referred to as occupants of the vehicles. This occurs generally when the occupants were out in the rain or snow before boarding the vehicle. Then, while the driver and passengers are lodged in the vehicle, some of these substances come off from the footwear and fall on the vehicle's floor, which typically includes carpeting. The substances accumulate on the floor and, in the case of snow, it melts thereon. These wet substances all too often contribute to the staining of and possible damage to pant cuffs and/or long dresses and coats.
It is also well known that floor mats are provided onto the vehicle's floor as a means of protection for the carpeting as well as the underlying structural metal floor against harmful corrosion due to saturation from the accumulated salt laden water. There are a variety of floor mats currently available on the market, which attempt to deal with the problem of water accumulation and garment protection through the use of ribbing. As a result of using ribbing, channels are created, which receive and store therein the aforementioned substances, while the ribbing prevents dragging garments from coming into contact with the substances accumulated in the floor mat's channels. However, the volumetric capacity of these channels is limited and when combined with vehicular movements, e.g. sharp turns, the substances can and do overflow the ribbing. In addition to overflow, when the water is too close to the upper edges of the ribbing absorption by the occupants' garments is possible, for example by capillarity.
There are a number of patents which have proposed solutions to this problem, such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,670 which issued on Aug. 23, 1988 to Jackson and which discloses a drainage mat for automobile floors. Sloping grooves or troughs are defined in the drainage mat such as to direct fluid dripping from the footwear of the automobile's occupants into a collecting trough provided at the rear of the mat. The collected fluid is drawn off into a closed storage tank connected to the drainage mat by a flexible tube. The tube can be disconnected so that the storage tank can be removed from the drainage mat and be subsequently emptied of the collected fluid, and thereafter reconnected to the drainage mat.
There is thus still a need for an improved floor mat for motor vehicles, which collects substances and keeps them away from the garments of the vehicles' occupants.